Offered at: San Luis Obispo Campus
The Cal Poly English Department provides an inclusive learning environment to promote the study of language, literatures, and rhetorics in diverse contexts. We are committed to fostering a respect for difference within our curriculum, our scholarship, and our community. Our undergraduate and graduate students learn to read carefully and deeply; to think critically and creatively; to write clearly, persuasively, and ethically; and to understand how power structures and cultural practices shape the production and reception of texts. Our faculty offer courses in literature, creative writing, composition and rhetoric, technical and professional communication, linguistics, film, English education, and theory and criticism. Our interdisciplinary approach provides a rich foundation in English Studies for our majors, our graduate students, and General Education students.
Program Learning Objectives
- Explicate texts from a diverse range of traditions, including texts from historically underrepresented groups.
- Analyze how power structures and cultural practices shape textual production and reception.
- Critique and produce texts that account for the rhetorical relationships among audience, writer, text, genre, and discourse.
- Write clearly and effectively in a variety of genres and media.
- Successfully incorporate scholarly research into papers.
- Identify and define an array of historical and critical literary, rhetorical, and linguistic terms and categories.
Degree Requirements and Curriculum
In addition to the program requirements listed on this page, students must also satisfy requirements outlined in more detail in the Minimum Requirements for Graduation section of this catalog, including:
- 40 units of upper-division courses
- 2.0 GPA
- Graduation Writing Requirements (GWR)
- U.S. Cultural Pluralism (USCP)
Note: No Major or Support courses may be selected as credit/no credit. In addition, no more than 12 units of cooperative or internship courses can count towards your degree requirements.
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| MAJOR COURSES | ||
| Introductory Study | ||
| Introduction to the Major | 4 | |
| Introduction to English Studies | ||
| Literature Elective | ||
| Select any GE 3B course in ENGL 1 | 3 | |
| Select from the following: | 12 | |
| Special Problems for Undergraduates | ||
| Literature Survey: Fifth to Fifteenth Centuries | ||
| Literature Survey: The Early Transatlantic Era | ||
| Literature Survey: The Multicultural Eighteenth Century | ||
| Literature Survey: Multicultural Romanticism | ||
| Literature Survey: Transatlantic Literature in the Industrial Age | ||
| Literature Survey: Transatlantic and Global Modernism | ||
| Literature Survey: Mid-Twentieth Century to the Present | ||
| Introduction to Writing Studies | ||
| Introduction to Technical and Professional Communication | ||
| Literature Survey: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries | ||
| Literature Survey: U.S. Literature Beginnings to 1820 | ||
| Literature Survey: U.S. Literature 1820 to 1900 | ||
| Introduction to Women Writers | ||
| Special Topics | ||
| Introduction to Linguistics | ||
| Intermediate Study | ||
| Select from the following: (Upper-Division 3) (GWR) 1 | 4 | |
| Literary Themes | ||
| Research Topics in Diversity in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century U.S. Literature | ||
| Research Topics in Queer and Trans Literature and Media | ||
| Intermediate Topics in Film | ||
| Select from the following: | 12 | |
| Intermediate Directed Study | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: Fifth to Fifteenth Centuries | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: The Early Transatlantic Era | ||
| Intermediate Literature: The Multicultural Eighteenth Century | ||
| Intermediate Literature: Multicultural Romanticism | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: Transatlantic Literature in the Industrial Age | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: Transatlantic and Global Modernism | ||
| Special Intermediate Topics | ||
| The Linguistic Structure of Modern English | ||
| Applied Linguistics | ||
| History of the English Language | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: U.S. Literature Beginnings to 1820 | ||
| Intermediate Literature Survey: U.S. Literature from 1820 to 1900 | ||
| Early U.S. Poetry | ||
| Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century U.S. Literature | ||
| Topics in Literature | ||
| Critical Approaches to Literature | ||
| Topics in Genre | ||
| Intermediate Topics in Writing | ||
| Learn By Doing in English Studies | ||
| Designing Content and Information for the Web | ||
| Advanced Study | ||
| Select from the following: | 16 | |
| Special Problems for Advanced Undergraduates | ||
| Seminar in Learn By Doing in English Studies | ||
| Advanced Critical Approaches to Literature | ||
| Advanced Topics in Literature | ||
| Story, History, Counterstory: Archives and Cultural Memory | ||
| Manifesto as Literature | ||
| Advanced Topics in Film | ||
| Internship | ||
| Teaching English Language Arts in Secondary Schools | ||
| English Clinical Experience Seminar | ||
| User Experience Writing and Research for Social Impact | ||
| Creative Problem-Solving for Social Impact in Technical and Professional Communication | ||
| Writing for Nonprofits | ||
| Topics in British Literature | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature | ||
| Topics in Transatlantic and/or World Literature | ||
| Advanced Topics in Technical and Professional Communication | ||
| Special Advanced Topics | ||
| Writing for Library and Museum Sciences | ||
| Designing Instructional Materials | ||
| Editing and Publishing: Fields and Practices | ||
| Editing, Publishing, and Community Literacies | ||
| Digital Content Management Strategy | ||
| Freelance Writing and Entrepreneurship | ||
| Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction | ||
| Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry | ||
| Practicum in Technical and Professional Communication | ||
| Topics in Applied Language Study | ||
| Theories of Language Learning and Teaching | ||
| Approaches to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages | ||
| Practicum in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages | ||
| ENGL 4000-level Diversity Elective | ||
| Select from the following: | 3-4 | |
| User Experience Writing and Research for Social Impact | ||
| Topics in British Literature (Topic: Fiction and Non-Fiction of Virginia Woolf) | ||
| Topics in British Literature (Topic: Gender in Medievel Literature) | ||
| Topics in British Literature (Topic: Jane Austen Fiction & Film) | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature (Topic: Califia, Delany & Pornography) | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature (Topic: Ethnofuturisms) | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature (Topic: U.S. Modernism Black & White) | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature (Topic: Walt Whitman and James Baldwin) | ||
| Topics in U.S. Literature (Topic: Women's Fiction, 1861-1914) | ||
| Topics in Transatlantic and/or World Literature (Topic: Trickster Literatures) | ||
| Topics in Applied Language Study (Topic: World Englishes) | ||
| Topics in Rhetoric and Writing (Topic: Women's Rhetorics) | ||
| Senior Project | ||
| ENGL 4461 | Senior Project | 4 |
| SUPPORT COURSES | ||
| Select from the following: 2 | 4 | |
| Elementary Chinese Language and Culture I | ||
| Elementary French Language and Culture I | ||
| Elementary German Language and Culture I | ||
| Elementary Italian I | ||
| Elementary Japanese I | ||
| Elementary Spanish I | ||
| Elementary World Language and Culture I | ||
| GENERAL EDUCATION (GE) | ||
| (See GE program requirements below) | 37 | |
| FREE ELECTIVES | ||
| Free Electives 3 | 20-21 | |
| Total Units | 120 | |
- 1
Required in Major or Support; also satisfies General Education (GE) requirement.
- 2
Students who demonstrate a comparable level of proficiency in a foreign language can substitute a 4-unit ENGL course for this requirement.
- 3
If a General Education (GE) course is used to satisfy a Major or Support requirement, additional units of Free Electives may be needed to complete the total units required for the degree.
General Education (GE) Requirements
- 43 units required, 6 of which are specified in Major and/or Support.
- If any of the remaining 37 Units is used to satisfy a Major or Support requirement, additional units of Free Electives may be needed to complete the total units required for the degree.
- See the complete GE course listing.
- A grade of C- or better is required in one course in each of the following GE Areas: 1A (English Composition), 1B (Critical Thinking), 1C (Oral Communication), and 2 (Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning).
| Lower-Division General Education | ||
| Area 1 | English Communication and Critical Thinking | |
| 1A | Written Communication | 3 |
| 1B | Critical Thinking | 3 |
| 1C | Oral Communication | 3 |
| Area 2 | Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning | |
| 2 | Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning | 3 |
| Area 3 | Arts and Humanities | |
| 3A | Arts | 3 |
| 3B | Humanities: Literature, Philosophy, Languages other than English (3 units in Major) 1 | 0 |
| Area 4 | Social and Behavioral Sciences (Area 4 courses must come from at least two different course prefixes.) | |
| 4A | American Institutions (Title 5, Section 40404 Requirement) | 3 |
| 4B | Social and Behavioral Sciences | 3 |
| Area 5 | Physical and Life Sciences | |
| 5A | Physical Sciences | 3 |
| 5B | Life Sciences | 3 |
| 5C | Laboratory (may be embedded in a 5A or 5B course) | 1 |
| Area 6 | Ethnic Studies | |
| 6 | Ethnic Studies | 3 |
| Upper-Division General Education | ||
| Upper-Division 2/5 | Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning or Physical and Life Sciences | 3 |
| Upper-Division 3 | Arts and Humanities (3 units in Major) 1 | 0 |
| Upper-Division 4 | Social and Behavioral Sciences (Area 4 courses must come from at least two different course prefixes.) | 3 |
| Total Units | 37 | |
- 1
Required in Major or Support; also satisfies General Education (GE) requirement.